Engaging, Caring, Working

I dropped some dry cleaning today.  When I asked the woman behind the counter if she voted, she looked down and said “No, I’m bad.  I’m 23 and I’ve never voted yet.”  We talked a bit more, and she thought she might, perhaps, maybe consider voting this time.

We old farts are great at telling people what they need and how we’re going to make sure they get it.  But I’ll bet no one has yet caught her attention, spoken in a language that reaches her, or listened to her about her hopes and wants.  And then we complain that those who are not just like us are “not engaged”, or “don’t care”, or “won’t make the effort”.

But (young) Michael Franti and Ani de Franco and (old) Utah Phillips had no problem “engaging” thousands of people at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, celebrating together as they laughed and sang and played and danced and ranted about the work we all need to do.  My dear niece Sara Kendall and her friends from the Power of Hope had no problem delivering her beat-box spoken-word charges to folks to care and to get up and get moving and make a difference for the disadvantaged and dispossessed.  The old-time folk singers had no problem delivering their messages about the effort needed for equity and fairness and rights for women and girls and children sent to war.  I didn’t see people who were unengaged, or who didn’t care, or who wouldn’t make an effort.  I saw huge energy and commitment and joy and passion and full willing hearts, all ready and willing and looking for a way to make a better world.  If we politicians aren’t able to make contact, we’d better examine the messages we try to deliver and the means we use to deliver them.

Let’s talk about our planet and our communities, and the way we treat people without power or money, let’s talk about our universities and schools as something more than training plants to mass-produce workers, let’s talk about the power of fun and music and art and culture to bring us together, let’s get together and shout out that the old ways of working with each other and with the world haven’t served a lot of people very well, let’s expand our sights past our borders to check in with the rest of people of the world, let’s get our acts together just a little bit.  Then let’s see who get engaged, who cares, who makes the effort.

We’re going to be part of a “Rock the Vote” event here in Penticton at the Shatford Centre at 6:00 pm on the 16th of April, rocking until midnight.  Politics can be huge fun.  We’re going to make it so.  Come one, come all.

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